GENETICS 32 1 



proper sense degenerative returns to a wild type, for in several examples 

 the rogues have pointed pods like the cultivated sorts from which they 

 have presumably been derived. All the more primitive kinds have the 

 dominant stump-ended pod. If the rogues had the stump pods they 

 would fall in the class of dominants, but they have no single quality 

 which can be declared to be certainly dominant to the type, and I see 

 no reason why they may not be actually recessives to it after all. 

 "Whether this is the true account or not we shall know for certain next 

 year. Mr. Sutton has given me a quantity of material which we are 

 now investigating at the John Innes Horticultural Institution, and by 

 sowing the seed of a great number of individual plants separately I 

 anticipate that we shall prove the rogue-throwers to be a class apart. 

 The pure types then separately saved should, according to expectation, 

 remain rogue-free, unless further sporting or fresh contamination 

 occurs. If it prove that the long and attenuated rogues are really 

 recessive to the shorter and more robust type, the case will be one of 

 much physiological significance, but I believe a parallel already exists 

 in the case of wheats, for among certain crosses bred by Professor 

 Biffen, some curious spelt-like plants occurred among the derivatives 

 from such robust wheats as Rivet and Red Fife. 



There is another large and important class of cases to which similar 

 considerations apply. I refer to the bolting or running to seed of crops 

 grown as biennials, especially root crops. It has hitherto been uni- 

 versally supposed that the loss due to this cause, amounting in sugar 

 beet as it frequently does to five, or even more, per cent., is not pre- 

 ventable. This may prove to be the truth, but I think it is not impos- 

 sible that the bolters can be wholly, or almost wholly, eliminated by the 

 application of proper breeding methods. In this particular example I 

 know that season and conditions of cultivation count for a good deal in 

 promoting or checking the tendency to run to seed, nevertheless one 

 can scarcely witness the sharp distinction between the annual and 

 biennial forms without suspecting that genetic composition is largely 

 responsible. If it proves to be so, we shall have another remarkable 

 illustration of the direct applicability of knowledge gained from a 

 purely academic source. " Let not him that putteth his armor on boast 

 him as he that putteth it off," and I am quite alive to the many obstacles 

 which may lie between the conception of an idea and its realiza- 

 tion. One thing, however, is certain, that we have now the power to 

 formulate rightly the question which the breeder is to put to nature; 

 and this power and the whole apparatus by which he can obtain an 

 answer to his question — in whatever sense that answer may be given — 

 has been derived from experiments designed with the immediate object 

 of investigating that scholastic and seemingly barren problem, " What 

 is a species ? " If Mendel's eight years' work had been done in an 



